Wu Wei

Update on family life

Well it's a farflung family.

Sloph is off to Moscow for three months on a language course, after finishing Oxford.  Now she has to decide what to do in life.  Our family never just decides to buckle down and get a 9-5 job.



Her  brief spot as a guest author on my blog during the war has not convinced her to start her own blog, unfortunately.

Bee spent the summer interrailing in South East Europe.  You can read all about it on her new blog Allbran here.  So far she has only got as far as Prague: Checking in - Czeching out, doing what all British young people do in Prague: drink.  Not all the details are the ones a mother wants to hear, but at least I know what she is up to from the blog.  Wait for further details on Istanbul, Tirana, Pristina.  While I was blogging on the war, she was busy visiting Castle Bran: war what war?

Of course these days when Oxford University proctors snoop on Facebook to see what pranks their students are up to, you never know what university admissions tutors use to select their students.  But who am I to tell her what to write.

A new use of Powerpoint

I just received an email announcing the birth of a son to someone I don't know that well. It's always nice to hear that women in their 30s have successfully started a family. I know how it feels to start late and wish I had managed more time for kids.

I was a bit dismayed to find it came with a powerpoint presentation ("the birth diary") and wondered what it could possibly contain. Thank God there was no video of the birth (perhaps you can't embed YouTube in Powerpoint), and no bullet points. Just some nice parent and baby photos with some captions in three languages.

I suppose there must be some photo album software that makes an birth album to distribute by email but not having any need of it, I haven't noticed.

Growing up and leaving home

 It seems I am getting advance warning of leaving my own home.  After Bee leaves home she assumes I will have left it too. As she says, how sad can you get for a teenager if you have to link to your mother's blog.  So I should return the complement by linking to hers.  There is also more on Cowley Road.

I sure hope I will have moved to sunny climes than Georgia where the weather forecast is now another 10 days of snow and ice. 

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Growing up and leaving home

Sloph left home again this summer, though she actually only moved down the road.  This seems to work much better for all of us.  Bee is enjoying having a house to herself and almost resents me coming home and interfering, apart from paying for extra food saving her housekeeping money. 

As a result I feel that in some way I also have grown up and left home, striking  out again on my own, in moving to Georgia for 18 months.  You aren't suppose to leave home at 60, you are supposed to be settling down to your retirement home.  But there's a curious sense of freedom, that I don't have to bother about them anymore and I can do what I like in my home now.  It's such a relief that I don't have to do all that travelling and no more living out of a suitcase in a hotel. 

Technorati tags: leaving home

Changes in the Wu household

My moving situation seems to be causing confusion.  Let me reassure you, it is confusing to us as well. 

Sloph has moved out, to be grown-up in her final year at university. Follow this part of the story carefully.

Bee and I have downsized to a new house unfortunately not available till mid-October, due to its needing a new roof.  We did try to find something available now, but failed.  Very stringent requirements by Bee (as she would be the main occupant) made it difficult (had to be in the same area, without longer walk to school, near friend with reasonable parents in case of emergency and mother out of country, but not near friend with parents who would worry about mother out of country).  Combined with my requirements, this narrowed the choice down rather a lot.  However, the result, though late, is opposite a sensible friend and near the gym and swimming pool as well as just off the famous Cowley Road (which now has its own Group on Facebook here) with 2 minute access to all the ethnic restaurants plus the Zodiac (see her blog here for music reviews).  What more could you want?  Actually it's in the street where Sloph was living when we first came back to England, where I swore I would never live.  But she was living in a student slum and we are not.

Consequently we have to camp in the meantime.  This is fine for me, since I am travelling round the Balkans between now and mid-November in any case, see map here. 

Luckily, Sloph found an unfurnished house in the same road as before, which she is sharing with two guys who even more luckily are not moving in immediately.  So we schlepped all our essential living stuff down the road to her new house, and as she moved out, we moved in temporarily.  I can record that the youth of today is more exhausted by moving than old age. 

There I have been providing useful motherly services:  providing equipment and furniture for the kitchen, (no point in putting it in storage), general unpacking, cooking and shopping, probably the most motherly stuff I have done for years :).   Also staying at home waiting for flatmate's bed to be delivered, and washing machine to be installed.  So far the score, on the third day, is one mattress, delivered separately from the rest of the the bed (for reasons unknown) one day late due to incorrect postcode, and no washing machine.  As a result, I now know flatmate marginally better than Sloph, who finds herself wondering whether she has really moved out at all.  Sloph in the meantime is providing full time medical secretary duties to the health service to fund her trip to Singapore before term starts, coming home depressed after typing letters about people with incurable diseases wanting treatment that the NHS won't provide.

Nibbles the cat has explored her new garden and has moved on to the neighbours'.  We are hoping that she does not wander so far that she recognises her old territory and gets confused.  However she does come when called (eventually) and has already worked out how to winge for the door to be opened to come in.  Since she has been with us on all our travels round Europe plus a few extra staging posts on the way, she is pretty adaptable.  No need to put butter on her paws or whatever you are supposed to do. This could be famous last words.

Last night, to celebrate surviving part 1 of the move and a big cheque finally arriving,  we went to the Kazbar, (Cowley Rd again) where we had excellent tapas in the Moroccan/Spanish themed dining area at the back.  Give the conservatory area in the front a miss, unless you want to just drink or enjoy loud music, and eat in the shadowy back.  Forgot to take any photos, and can't find any on the web.  Such a shame. 

This weekend has a general exodus: Sloph is off to Brussels to meet friend from Vilnius before she moves to Warsaw with boyfriend; Bee is off for mud and  the joys of Reading Festival (looking like a packhorse/snail with a complete home on her back) to celebrate excellent GCSE exam results; and me off to Belgrade for work.  Only the cat left at home.

Technorati tags: Cowley Rd, Kazbar, moving house, cat moving house

Limits to teenage independence

Bee is still at the stage of establishing an independent life with her school friends with whom she has an active social life and who provide a large measure of support when I am away for longer periods. When I come back, she resents having to share the house again with someone, having got used to doing things her way. For myself, I resent coming back to an empty house, with no food and a general teenage mess, and all the problems I left behind still to fix. Only the cat misses me, and instantly returns to sleep on my bed.

After a few days I hardly notice the teenage mess, having stamped a minimum of order on the place. In my four days spent at home last week, we had not managed one meal together, such was her social life. But despite the constant teenage coming and going, she has discovered the limits to freedom. Just as I was leaving again, she said "it's nice to have someone else in the house: the lights are on at night, there are cooking smells, even if the food is eaten".

Logistics of living

Life without work and the problems of getting back to work:

Me:
It’s the problem of how to finance an education for Bee for the next 4 years, so she has some stability. All the jobs in countries with good schools (eg Vienna and Copenhagen) aren’t paying school fees, so it looks like a move back to the UK and packing her off to boarding school at vast expense while I travel. And then I “forgot” to get the cat’s rabies injections up to date, so the cat can’t go back till November, so will have to have a “holiday” in Ljubljana with my sister. And now I have to have a gall bladder operation before the summer!

Just coping with problems one day at a time is enough to fill the day!

J:
It's the logistics of living that are such a pain. The cat, the school, the move, the health, the hair coloring, the annuals into the flower boxes, yatta yatta yatta. We can manage the EU, but these small things can fell any good woman.

Me:
I finally fixed the hair colour last week. No annuals this year as waste of money if moving. All my balcony plants revived once I realised the cleaning lady carefully turned the water off each week, and the computerised automatic watering system couldn’t turn the water on again. Stupid thing.

Now just been despairing with the internet and wireless connection (end of the world). Set it up all on my own!!! Finally we got DSL just before we leave. Not perfect (needs resetting when I reboot the computer but I try not to reboot). One day I will fix it. But magically it started working again.

After the gall bladder op I have to have holiday then pack up and move somewhere soon after the op. Doc has okayed the holiday, but not sure he heard my mention moving as he gave me instructions not to do any weiightlifting.

J:
If it's of any comfort, I also have a fear of not having enough money. My husband (who, to put things in perspective, was born and raised in a Serbian village) looks at me in amazement and wonders, "How much is enought? No amount is enough for you." Probably right, but I have a number in mind that would make me feel secure. At least I think. Which probably means it will shift upward forever.

Me:
I know about the money. Seven years ago we lived for a year on 1000 GBP a month and were quite happy. Now we are into private education (which I was always politically against) and private health care (ditto), all because of my job moving us round so much. Sloph’s boyfriend (whose parents were poor but got left lots of money recently) used to consider us as high powered and rich. I think he was shocked when my job disappeared. But I had had continuous employment at a great salary for seven years so couldn't complain about a gap. Especially now the gap has ended, hopefully. Just no pension, so have to keep working till I drop.

Kids have a choice of university education now (no loan) and pay for me in grand style in my old age. Or have a loan now .... and hope I don't live too long. Sloph has worked out it's better to take the loan anyway, since you can put it in the bank and get interest on it whether you use it or not.

Rereading this, I'm sure there will be not much sympathy for me and my "troubles". Everyone in new Europe has the same problems of how to get their kids a good education and how to save for their pension. Only in old Europe can you rely on the state, and probably not for much longer.

These biscuit packets seemed irresistible

These biscuit packets seemed irresistible in the shop. The picture of mother (or maybe grandma, but she isn’t in black) and daughter mixing the biscuits in a big bowl in the open air seemed so convincing that they were going to be good.

And so they were, the orange ones very orangey and the savoury ones (thyme and lemon and peppers) rather peppery. I had to eat them up quick once the packet was open. Unfortunately some were broken, but this gave another excuse to finish them off.

Even the bag itself, with its foil lining, was satisfactorily bulging.

A full day!

Unexpected last minute call to chat and gossip with ex-colleague Eye (still hopeful for future working together) in from UK. Cosy chat hijacked by Albanian and Bulgarian colleagues, so we tour the tourist areas of Plaka and Monastiraki, till the cold drives us to a café. We avoid several where we feel we will double the average age of the occupants, at the same time wondering why they aren’t at work if they can afford tourist places.

Sitting outside I order a hot drink and am mocked by the others who sign on for the usual Greek iced coffee. After a while Eye borrows the Bulgarian’s heavy coat (leaving him in shirt sleeves --- a hardy man!) and then orders tea to warm up. After the updating on work (not much progress) and the purpose they are in town (no agenda for the meeting) the conversation turns to more interesting topics.

I have to say my impression of Albania as a closed society before “the changes” is changing as I meet more and more officials. The one I know best spent time in China but also speaks Italian and now English. His daughter is studying in Rome. Today’s Albanian admits he is a “young generation” who doesn’t know Russian, unlike the Bulgarian who has been educated with Russian technical materials. He also says that until recently Dostoievsky was banned in Albania, which surprises us all. His daughter is studying architecture in Paris. How do they afford it all? Here’s me struggling to afford to support one daughter in the UK on minuscule home student fees, whereas they have to pay fees and living expenses. Maybe they have scholarships or the fees to study are not large, but on their salaries compared with mine? Perhaps one shouldn’t ask any more but just be glad they are spending it on education for their kids in such good places. Interestingly, the daughter had been surprised that architecture required the study of history of architecture and urbanisation rather than being just about engineering. The students all were surprised and were threatening a protest to the university. I always thought that that was an essential part of the architecture course, otherwise you end up with ever more concrete blocks since that is all the engineers can do. It was always more fun (and demanding) tutoring students at the AA in London who seemed to know no engineering than the students at Birmingham School of Architecture who knew no art.

Somehow we got onto a discussion of Scandinavians and their culture. Eye (an American married to a Swede) agreed with me that although seemingly more tolerant and open, they actually were relatively intolerant of foreigners and even groups at home who were different. Sloph (my daughter who went to school in Denmark) was shocked to find little old ladies in Copenhagen would spit at passing blacks or Afghanis. Eye agreed it was easier to make friends in Bulgaria and Albania than in Scandinavia.

And from comparisons of countries, the (male) conversation turned to which country had the most beautiful women, with the Bulgarian winning the anecdote competition. Eye and I retreated to the bathroom to giggle about this topic of conversation coming up all the time with the home country always being the best. I was tempted to start a competition for the most attractive men. We always used to remark that inevitably the women in Eastern Europe soon became smarter and better dressed, whereas the men (even young ones) made little effort on their appearance. Women were not nearly so patriotic as men. Women in Ukraine and Lithuania would say that any men were better than the local ones, but this was often based on their behaviour as well as their appearance. Personally I would go for the Scandinavians as a group.

Afternoon

One of my favourite “Lithuanian” jobs every year has been to improve the English captions for the annual Lithuanian press photography exhibition before they get printed in a catalogue. The first year I just got the captions and had to guess what the photos were of. That was hilarious, especially the military ones where the military terminology wasn’t part of my usual reading, and my Lithuanian there was nonexistent. Now I get the photos and my Lithuanian was not bad when I left. Almost the first one I opened, mentioned the beautiful girls of Lithuania!

I wish there was a website I could link to, to show the photos. However, in some cases you really need to know Lithuania or current events there to appreciate the photo.

Daughters and their domestic skills?

Because I have always worked, they have grown up with a team of childminders and cleaners, so it has taken time  for them to learn to keep their rooms tidy and hang up their clothes.  But what’s unusual about that?

Sloph has followed my path, preferring to know nothing of cleaning, washing and ironing until some was forced on her by life in boarding school.  Do schools in Britain still teach domestic science (or home economics as it was upgraded to) and if so can they compete with Jamie Oliver on TV?  Is it assumed that boys and girls in elite boarding schools will still inherit homes with servants? 

Can cooking be included in the Homo Faber syllabus of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, now de rigeur in international schools? I have never heard of it.  Is the Latin name still indicative of gender bias towards woodwork and metalwork?  In my Latin lessons at school, I remember translating a menu for a banquet, but it seems there were no real recipes to go with it.  One dish was something like a swan stuffed with a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a quail stuffed with a pigeon stuffed with an olive.  The idea was to eat the olive.  They say that learning Latin was useless for modern life, but this was not quite what they had in mind.

Bee, on the other hand, has demanded to learn to knit, though she has not seen me do it much.  Proficiency has been measured in the length of a scarf knitted on enormous needles in nobbly wool (the dropped stitches are more easily disguised). The products have been much admired by her teenage friends.  Sewing on buttons and mending rips in favourite clothes and turning up hems are still delegated to mother. 

Who provides the new essential “services” of the modern age which support the working mother?  For us, it has become reliable low cost transport (taxi) to transport kids to school, cafe and the local cinema, (wonderful in Vilnius and hopeless in Athens) and the healthy food delivery service (souvlaki from Grandma’s, two blocks away in Athens, reprieving us from a diet of pizza).  And let’s not forget the man who fixes the satellite TV and brings the pirate card.  Or the English speaking student/au pair/cleaning lady/maid who finds you the shoe repairer (needed on a rare occasion these days) or an explanation of a local holiday custom.  In return you acquire her problems:  struggles with college fees, exams (whether to cheat or not) and whether life with a foreign family is more interesting than the possible teaching job in a rural school which seems the only way to get started.

In Athens we have been frustrated by lack of communication with our Polish maid who seems to speak fluent Greek but not English French or German.  Her life remains a mystery to us, though her excellence and common sense as a maid indicate she could do much better in life.  Is this the curse of the Greek education system in which she must have grown up?

How do mothers transmit domestic skills to their children now? Should they even bother to try?  What are the new technical proficiencies one needs for domestic life these days?  Lessons in computers and internet hardly count, since these are as essential as reading and writing.  In our house the most practical technical task needed is finding a spare UK/continental plug adaptor.  Both my kids learned to do this early in life.  And the biggest help for a mother is for the teenager to order the dinner for delivery, when the mother has SMSd her arrival time. And perhaps I should add the ability to read labels in supermarkets in whatever languages are available.